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Farm kids can't work on their family farms?

When I was growing up on a family farm, way back during the depression, it was wonderful. Now the President wants to make it illegal for farm children up to 18 years of age to work on their own farms. Unionizing the farm workers. I know that unionized men would not do the work required on a farm. Personal experience was that my father one day brought a cardboard box into the house and put it on the oven lid to keep a baby lamb warm that was just born and its mother died. He cleaned it up and we always had ketchup bottles available and nipples to fit to feed any of the baby pigs, calves or lambs that needed to be fed. Now my responsibility as a 5- to 6-year-old was to feed that lamb several times a day until it could be but back in the yard with the rest of the sheep. I named it "Popeye" and when we went outside it followed me around better than a dog would.

The farm was the greatest teacher of the animal world and planting and harvesting the crops. I did not think of it as work. My first cow to milk started when I was 8, morning and night and more were added later.

In our small farming town community, the majority of the students were raised on a farm. We had some very good athletes and in 1949, we went to Iowa H.S. State tournament in Baseball. Eight of the nine starters were from the farm. We did not need thousands of dollars of gym and training gear like the schools of today need, we all started out the day by throwing around 65- to 80-pound bales of hay and straw to feed and spread in the shed. Usually 5 or more cows to milk morning and night and feeding the rest of the hogs and cattle.

I am terribly alarmed at the future of the graduating seniors of today. Never seeing any of them shoveling snow or mowing lawns, just hiding in a room with a computer and playing games -- unlike the farm boys who could take a farm over and run it after graduation. Some got started on their own. My class president went right into farming and then if you would like to see what his success was, in Facebook, type in the name of Dean Kleckner, Rudd, Iowa graduate of 1950.

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spwright:
sounds like you must have been a whinny little kid growing up? Saying you were worked like a slave for nothing but a meal. You had a roof over your head 3 or 4 meals aday they bought you your clothes you had vehicles to drive you learned how to work and work, work ethics, and always do the best you could possibly do, you learned trades that most kids could never learn in school, You learned discispline, respect, how to repair things mechanics, weld, horticulture,animal husbandry, you got to see and learn the way of nature, I grew up on a farm in MIssouri also we farmed hundreds and hundreds up to thousand acres and more and I would not trade my youth for anything. It was an wonderful time city kids now days ask about the ole days of how I grew up and I tell them and they are fascinated by all the experiences we had as youndsters and most of them wish they could experience it for their selves. I loved it and wish I could turn back time and do it all over again.
Sounds like you want what all the kids expect now days everything for nothing no work and a big pay day. God Bless yoou for not grasping your love of nature with both hands and charishing it with GOD and an open mind.
KIDS NOW DAYS ARE JUST PURE FRIGGN LAZY WITH NO RESPECT FOR THEMSELVES OR ANYBODY AROUND THEM.

Mr Norton, Well I just didn't fall off of the turnip truck. One of the Life Lessons. IF a Business has a constant turnover of employees & the Employer has to constantly Hire & Train New Employees then You DON'T have a Employee Attitude Problem what You have is a Management Problem.

If a business offers reasonable wages & benefits & a actual future with that business. Then the Employees will be loyal & stay employed at that business for as long as possible.

So I ask WHY do Farmers have a constant TurnOver with Employees, Why do their own Children leave the Farm in search of a better Life ?

I know from 1st hand experience in Agricultural Labor that Farmers do in fact work their hired Labor as hard as Slaves & Pay them next to nothing.
I did not say that I was a Farm Kid from a Farm Family.
I stated that I had worked as a Farm Laborer during JrHigh & High School in Missouri.

So as you rant & rave about being the Child of a Farmer then maybe that is a Positive ? I don't know ? I never was the child of a Farmer.

My experience working as Farm Labor was Negative

As for a Older Generation complaining about the Younger Generation Well that's been around since the beginning of time ! Old Farts always complain about the TeenAgers.
& now I'm One of those Old Farts.

Mr. Morrison, I know that there is a delay between the submission of a letter to the editor and its publication, but the new law you speak of was nixed six days ago.

In actuality, it would not have hindered work like yours and Mr. Norton's, since wholly-owned, single-generation family farms were exempt. However, it would have ruined multi-generational farms and programs like 4H and FFA. How many parents of minors nowadays actually own their farms, and do not share ownership with any relatives or partners? I don't imagine it's near what it used to be, so this legislation would have effectively ended a way of life.

WOW...you are a piece of work. Just because you may have not been quite as intelligent and worked one or two summers for a flimsy Farming outfit, does not mean you experienced enough to give an opinion about the Farm Owners and Kids throughout our Country.

Maybe you can open your ears and close your mouth for a moment to discover this is another obama communist powerplay to destroy the small farms.

Wake up spwright...set the bong down...turn off the Liberal idiot channel...and get a grip dude..